The NHL's Richest Local Television Deals

The Pittsburgh Penguins scored a new
local television rights deal with Root Sports in 2011, its then tenth year generating the highest average regional sports network ratings for any U.S.-based MLB, NBA or NHL team. (Last season the Pens stretched that to thirteen years when it generated a 12.66 average household rating for regular season games, besting all U.S.-based NHL and NBA for the second year in a row and all U.S.-based NHL teams for the fourth year in a row.) The contract is the longest broadcast deal in the club’s history, running through the 2028-29 season, and pays nearly double the prior deal according to a source familiar with it. Last season that amounted to $16 million including money earned from the team's playoff run.

The Los Angeles Kings won big with a contract extension with its RSN partner,
Fox Sports West, during its Stanley Cup Finals victory run in 2012. The 12-year, $250 million deal, which included an upfront payment, pads the Kings’ coffers 75% more than the old contract that was set to run until 2015 and pay only $12 million in its final season.

“Market size is the major factor dictating these contracts now,” said a source privy to both negotiations on how deals are no longer based on the going ad rate to reach those tuned into the game. “Every team in the league is, if not entirely, very close to exclusively shown on RSNs which generally make 80% of their income from subscribers, and only 20% from ads. Owners are now making sure they are getting paid a piece of the whole pie, not just the crust."

The Kings ratings are proof positive of this. The team consistently ranks in the bottom five among U.S. hockey teams in TV ratings. The Los Angeles market is the second largest in the league though, behind New York. The Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils of that market are also among the top 10 teams cashing in the most from local TV, with the latter two joining the Kings at the bottom of the barrel in ratings.

“Los Angeles is saturated with RSNs vying to gobble up team rights to remain competitive,” added the source. “Live sports are the lifeline of these networks.”

That leads to how the Pens banked 90% what the Kings did last season from their local broadcast partner despite a population five times smaller. For half of the year, it is the only major sports team available to Root Sports, the only RSN in town.

It’s a similar situation north of the border, and why three of the seven Canadian NHL teams – the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks – earn enough from their local TV rights to be included on our list of teams with the richest deals.

“Hockey is iconic in Canada,” said Drew Dorweiler whose Montreal-based Dartmouth Partners has worked with NHL teams. “It is the main sports attraction. It’s not just cable sports channels but over-the-air broadcasters that want to compete for NHL action.”

The Toronto Maple Leafs benefit from this, taking the top spot on our list for pocketing $40 million a year from the sale of its local broadcast rights. In a deal that is up at the end of the 2014-15 season, Rogers Sportsnet shells out over $700,000 a game for each Leafs game it airs or farms out to fellow broadcaster TSN. That helps contribute to the team's $1.15 billion value, the highest in the NHL.

The Montreal Canadiens could soon eclipse this amount. As first reported by Canada's La Presse, in a recent filing with the Canadian regulatory agency CRTC related to Bell-Acadia and former Habs president Pierre Boivin, the team receives in excess of $31 million from current rights holder Reseau des Sports. Dorweiler said their next contract is expected to double, as its one prior to this did. The team would only comment to say that negotiations were ongoing.

So what about the teams in the top ten biggest markets who failed to make our list?

The Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers are among them. Each team's owner also has an ownership stake in it's local Comcast Sportsnet RSN, and just miss the list. The Anaheim Ducks' current deal with Fox Sports ends after this current season and two media sources say a new one could fetch money similar to the Kings, as it remains the last major sports TV rights grab in the city.

The Miami-based Florida Panthers, sitting in hockey’s sixth largest city, miss our list by the most – enough to rank closer to an 'NHL’s Poorest Local Television Deals' list if it existed. They inked a 10-year, $115 million extension with Fox Sports Florida that began last season according to a source who reviewed its terms. To the team it was lucrative. It is when compared to the prior TV deal; but not when compared to the deal of the same-sized city of Toronto. It is one of the reasons the team was consistently linked to a move north prior to being sold in September for $240 million. But that's not necessarily a sign the grass is brown in this Sun Belt state.

"The Panthers deal is not a reflection that Canada is the place to go to make the most TV money because let's face it, not every team is going to fetch Maple Leaf money," said the source familiar with the Kings and Penguins deal. "It's actually a sign of progress in the NHL."

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